Mental health sector

Demand and activity

The latest mental health monthly performance data for April 2024, published in July, reveal both ongoing challenges but also some areas of improvement across mental health and learning disability settings.

Referrals for mental health services have fallen since the previous month. However, demand for services remains substantially higher than pre-pandemic levels. This highlights the longer-term trend of higher demand for mental health services, despite some month-to-month fluctuations. In April 2024, nearly 426,000 mental health referrals were made, an increase of 15% compared to a year ago. This is also two fifths higher (40%) than five years ago in April 2019.

Although the number of referrals and people in contact with mental health services fell in the latest month, there are more people than ever before in contact with mental health services. The latest figures continue to highlight the importance of the new government prioritising mental health services and tackling the mental healthcare deficit.

There were 1.91 million people in contact with mental health services in April 2024. This is up by 11.3% compared to a year ago and remains considerably higher than pre-pandemic levels, with 41.1% more people in contact with mental health services since April 2019. In total, 21.8 million people were in contact with mental health services in 2023/24, an increase of 9.4%, compared to 2022/23.